


The Rubber Chicken Incident

by patchfire, raving_liberal



Series: Story of Three Boys [14]
Category: Glee
Genre: Brothership, Gen, Rubber Chicken
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-20
Updated: 2012-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-31 12:32:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/344104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patchfire/pseuds/patchfire, https://archiveofourown.org/users/raving_liberal/pseuds/raving_liberal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>ChickenFinn Hudson knows what it means to be a chicken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Rubber Chicken Incident

**Author's Note:**

> Read chapter XVI of This is the Story of a Boy first. If you wondered why Finn was looking for a rubber chicken, this is for you.

Kurt’s on the phone when Finn pops his head into the room. “Dude, have you seen my rubber chicken?”

Kurt tears his attention away from the phone for a moment and sighs, “Finn, I haven't seen your rubber chicken. Why do you need a rubber chicken? Nevermind, I don't want to know.” Finn shrugs, because he didn’t really think Kurt had seen it, anyway, and as he leaves Kurt’s room, he hears Kurt say something about switching siblings. Finn grins, because he knows Kurt doesn’t mean it. They’re stuck with each other and Finn thinks Kurt might be just as fine with that as Finn is.

The chicken probably got packed in the move, and while Finn was supposed to unpack all his boxes, the truth is, he hasn’t. The best part about being a senior is that, at this point, his mom doesn’t spend any time going through his stuff. He can shove packed boxes into his closet, think “I’ll get to them later,” then never actually get to them, and nobody has anything to say about it.

Of course, if one of those boxes contains a rubber chicken that he has to find if he’s going to use it to make a point, then Finn probably has to finally go through them. All eight or nine of them. Dammit. 

Finn spends a half hour going through two boxes, which contain a mix of clothes he forgot he had, CDs he’s already ripped into iTunes, photographs (including quite a few of him and Quinn, which he crumples and tosses into the trash can, and one really nice one of Rachel that he smiles at and slides into his pocket), and a stack of homework assignments that had been due some time last year. Towards the bottom of the third box, he finds the rubber chicken.

Over the next few minutes, Finn carefully arranges his football jersey on his bed.He slips the rubber chicken inside, props the ball next to it, and snaps a quick picture with his phone. He shoves the partially unpacked boxes back into his closet, then uploads the picture to Facebook, where he changes it to his profile picture. The caption reads: Finn relaxing before the big game.

If Sam and Mike are ridiculous enough to call him a chicken, he’s ridiculous enough to be one.

 

A few days pass, and Finn gets a “LOL” (from Sam), a “cluck!” (from Mike), and a couple of “huh” (from Tina, Artie, and Quinn) comments to his new profile picture, as well as one “Finn, I’m not exactly sure what I’m looking at. Are you sure you used the correct picture?” from Rachel. Also, a “my son is always so handsome” from his mother, which is embarrassing, so Finn deletes it. That evening, he changes his name on Facebook, too. He goes through his friends’ posts and likes things, because he wants them to know that ChickenFinn Hudson likes this. 

 

Finn gets Mr. Schue to let him into the auditorium between classes, in the name of needing a private place to practice his song for next week, which of course, has become more difficult now that he has a brother. Schue is very understanding.

It takes a little rearranging and something to prop up the chicken, but before Finn leaves the auditorium, he has a picture of the rubber chicken dressed in a tiny red t-shirt (swiped from an old teddy bear he found in one of the boxes in his closet), singing into a microphone. 

When Finn gets home that night, he updates his profile picture yet again. This time the caption is “ChickenFinn never stops believin’.” 

 

Finn assumed the comments would have petered off by this point, but no. If anything, there’s _more_ interest in this whole chicken situation. 

“Why the chicken pictures?” Artie wants to know.

“You are very, very strange,” Tinn comments.

“I bet Kurt’s glad you two aren’t related by blood,” is Puck’s input on the matter.

“Well, at least I know why you were looking for the chicken,” writes Kurt. 

“Finn, please explain this chicken thing to me! I’m *very* confused,” Rachel responds. 

The little bar of text under the picture, but above the comments, declares that Mike Chang and Sam Evans both like Finn’s new profile picture. They are otherwise conspicuously silent on the matter. 

 

Finn enlists Brittany and Santana’s help, because he can’t ask Mike or Sam and nobody else is willing to humor him. He only needs their feet, anyway. The picture he uploads to Facebook that night is the chicken, lying on the floor, surrounded by feet. One of chicken’s feet is caught underneath Brittany’s shoe. The caption: “ChickenFinn Can’t Dance.”

 

Another few days pass, and Rachel continues to pester Finn about the chicken pictures.

“But _why_ , Finn? Why do you keep changing your picture? What’s this whole chicken thing?” She looks very concerned. 

Finn can’t explain, because _not_ explaining was specifically part of the bet. Besides, the bet was about Rachel, and she would probably be pretty unhappy to know that a bet was made about her, even if Finn never actually followed through and just took the loss. Instead he kisses her and twists locks of her dark hair around his fingers to make it spring into curls, and then he talks her into holding the chicken.

That night, he changes his Facebook profile picture to one of a very annoyed and exasperated Rachel holding hands with the chicken. Well, her hand, the chicken’s wing, and the chicken technically isn’t holding anything, since it’s made out of rubber. He captions the picture “ChickenFinnchel.” Mike and Sam are the first to like the picture, within a few minutes of each other. 

 

Thus far, everyone has been pretty accommodating of Finn’s chicken, so Finn decides to push his luck a little. That night, at dinner, he asks his mom, Burt, and Kurt if they’d be willing to pose together for a family portrait.

Finn’s mom gushes and Burt acts pleased, but Kurt seems wary. Kurt’s right, of course, and as soon as Carole, Burt, and Kurt are posed on the sofa, Finn pulls out the chicken. Kurt mouths “what the actual fuck” at him, but Finn grins and hands Kurt the chicken. The subsequent family portrait has Burt looking at the chicken in confusion, Carole staring at the camera with her head tilted and her mouth in a little frown of disappointment, and Kurt sitting perfectly rigid and composed, the chicken held out from his body like something contaminated that he is sure he doesn’t want touching his clothing.

Finn captions the picture “family portrait” before making it his profile picture, and he tags his mom, Burt, and Kurt in the picture. Kurt promptly untags himself and comments, “If you do not remove this picture immediately, there will be pain, and it will come at a time when you least expect it.”

Finn does not remove the picture. Instead, he also posts it to Kurt’s wall. 

 

Kurt doesn’t know why Finn keeps posting pictures of a rubber chicken, but after the family portrait, Kurt has had quite enough of it. When Finn leaves for Rachel’s, without the chicken, thank goodness, Kurt steals into Finn’s room and takes the chicken. 

Kurt wraps his gauziest scarf around the chicken’s neck. He places the chicken carefully into one of Carole’s highest-heeled dress shoes, then poses it in front of his vanity mirror. He arranges a few of Carole’s lipsticks, a compact and makeup brush, and a bottle of perfume around the chicken. He takes a quick picture, then returns everything to its proper place.

He uploads the picture to his own Facebook, tags it “ChickenFinn,” and captions the picture “J. Edgar Hudson.” 

 

Finn’s confused when he sees the picture. He’s not confused about the chicken part, because, well, that’s kind of turned a _thing_. He doesn’t understand the caption, so he Googles “J. Edgar Hudson” and then “J. Edgar Hoover” after Google suggests that might be what he actually wanted to Google. Google is _very_ smart. 

He’s not happy with what he reads about J. Edgar Hoover, because he thought he and Kurt had settled that whole drag queen thing. “It’s _on_ , brother,” Finn mumbles to himself, pulling boxes back out of his closet and pawing through them until he finds what he’s looking for.

Half an hour later, Finn uploads a new picture to Facebook: a rubber frog, wearing a fedora, posed in front of a paper speech bubble that says “I’m _fabulous!_ ” He tags it “Kurt Hummel.” 

 

Finn knew when he agreed to the bet with Sam and Mike that there wasn't much chance that he'd actually follow through with it. He's pretty sure _they_ didn't think he'd follow through with the chicken part, either. If there's one thing Finn is certain he taught them over the last two weeks, it's what it really means to be a chicken.


End file.
